Great Friends

I've been meaning to write this post for a long time. Marc and Dana are some very good friends of ours that we met when we lived in Shreveport. We were in grad school with Dana and she and Em hit it off immediately. I met Marc through her and it didn't take long for us all to become close. When we graduated, Em and I moved to Longview and Dana worked in Shreveport while Marc went to grad school. Once he finished, they both moved to Longview. We were pretty much joined at the hip with them during their 2 years here and they have become some of our best friends. Marc is one of the funniest people I've ever known and Dana has one of the biggest hearts there is. Most of our weekends were spent together, we had "dinner night" several nights a week, and we were all fortunate enough to work together. We took trips together, ran 1/2 marathons together, worked out together, watched movies together, pretty much did everything together... so Em and I were saddened to see them leave when they moved to Phoenix at the beginning of October to be closer to family. About 6 months before they moved, Dana found out she was pregnant and on December 2nd, baby Jake joined the cast. Em and I flew out to Phoenix on December 4th and spent about 4 days with them. He's a great looking kid with a head full of hair and he performs all his baby "doodies" well! We wanted write about Marc and Dana so we could share a little about them with those that don't know them, and to let them know how much they mean to us. We miss you guys terribly and can't wait to see you soon! Here are some pics from their going away party and our trip to see them last month. Enjoy!

Party

Phoenix

Gulf Shores 2008

Every summer the entire Pope family packs it up and heads to the beach. It's been a family tradition since Max and Margaret got married and I believe they've only missed one summer since. And for anyone that knows Max, this is the only week out of the year where he actually does nothing. I know it's a shocker, but he actually defines "relaxing" when we're there. We always say Gulf Shores, when in actuality, we usually stay in Orange Beach. Gulf Shores is a few miles down the road and is better known in the Pope clan as "Nerd Beach". Speaking of the Pope clan, just look at the picture below and you'll see what I mean.



It's a pretty routine vacation that I know Em and I really look forward to every summer, and I'm sure everyone else does too. Things have mellowed out in the last 7-8 years, with 8 kids and all, but we have an absolute blast regardless. And Liz is a big help and great relief to some of the parents. Entertain the kids for a free trip to the beach... no brainer. To give everyone an idea of what a typical week at the beach is like with our family, I'll just share a few things from this year. There is a show that comes on HDNET here called Beachgoers Exposed. I saw an episode recently and they did this whole bit on families/groups that go to the beach and take everything under the sun with them. They claim an area, they set up tents, and they pretty much live on the beach. Well we've always had a tent set up, but after this year, I think the verdict is in. We are officially "those people". Eighteen people, a giant wagon carrying 2 coolers, beach chairs galore including 4 super high tech "zero-gravity" chairs (eyes rolling), a kiddy pool, kites, 2 little baby tents, and four 10'x10' party tents put together to make one massive shaded area. Once the "structure" is up, activities include laying in the sun, relaxing in the shade, napping, visiting, iPodding, reading, trafficing kids back and forth from the pool, building sandcastles, and flying kites. I think Faber read about 10 books on the beach. I read half a book and Emily actually read an entire novel in one day. I'm such a proud husband. Mason and I flew our stunt kites and schooled some guys in the group next to us that had no idea how to fly theirs. Amateurs. A little bit of shopping, a movie, eating out a time or two, it was a great time. The water was pretty murky the first 2 days... lots of seaweed and jellyfish. It cleared out the third day and the waves were still pretty big, so Mason and I managed to get some nice body surfing in. The water was very clear and calm the rest of the week. We got some good pics, but the slideshow function will only let me include 50 pics, so I made two. Here is the first one.

It is inevitable that whenever we are around all of these kids, there is always a "question of the month". Well it was a 3-way tie this time between Anna Kate, Maxwell, and Olivia & Maxwell. I don't think I've ever heard a kid ask "why?" as much as Anna Kate. "Adam, what are you doing? Sitting down. Why? Because I'm tired? Why? Because I played on the beach and built sandcastles all day? Why? Because I wanted to. Why? Because it was fun? Why? It just was. Why? BECAUUUUUUUSE!!!" And every single time a plane flew over with an advertisement banner, which was approximately every 20 minutes, Maxwell asked "what does that say?" He was very enthusiastic and determined to know the information that those planes were carrying. And between Maxwell and Olivia, I think I heard "Adam, can we build a sandcastle?" about 200 times. And of course by "we" they meant "me"! As you'll see in the pictures, they were really excited and motivated to help for about 5 minutes, but somehow always ended up "supervising and/or spectating" with Papoo! It's a good thing I like building sandcastles. We had a wonderful time this year. My only complaint, as usual, is that it always goes by too fast. But then, next year will be here before we know it.

Kids Say the Darndest Things!

Em and I went to Atlanta over the 4th of July weekend to see Hudson, Melissa, Olivia, Maxwell, and to our surprise, Abigail! The doctors said she wasn't due until sometime this week, but apparently she had other plans. Baby Abigail "Graced" us with her presence (sorry, I couldn't resist) around 3:17 am on July 4th, 2008. Hudson picked me and Em up at the airport and took us straight to the hospital. We hung out there for a little while before he took us and the kids back to their house. After a 2 hour nap, Hudson went back to the hospital and we wouldn't see him, Mel, or Abigail for another 24 hours or so. That's when the fun began. We took Maxwell and Olivia to see WALL-E, which was pretty cute in a "political comment on the sad state of humanity disguised as an animated kids movie" sort of way. Then we went to Chic-Fil-A for dinner and headed home to play Wii, where Maxwell proceeded to destroy everyone in bowling! This kicked off a weekend full of playing Wii and resulted in the question of the year, which was most definitely "Adam, can we play the Wii?" If there is a world record for the number of times that question gets asked in a 3-day time span, Olivia and Maxwell SHATTERED it! It actually worked out great for me though, because most of the time they wanted to watch me play instead of play themselves. Who knew? It was cloudy and kind of rainy most of the time we were there, but we got a little sunshine and Emily and I had really been looking forward to taking the kids to the pool. I almost fainted when we said "hey let's go to the pool" and the response was "Noooo! We want to play Wii!" We practically had to beg them to go swimming!

I know this post is long, but we had so much fun and there's so much to say. So from here on out, I'll try to summarize everything else we did and then explain the reasoning for the title of this post. We hung out, watched TV, played Wii, ate ribs that Hudson made on the Big Green Egg, swam a few times, played more Wii, went to Dick's Sporting Goods and Marble Slab, looked at baby Abigail, ate watermelon, held baby Abigail, played some more Wii, did sparklers and snappy-pops (well, some of us did), looked at baby Abigail some more, and got pounced on very early every morning by two crazy kids! Oh, and did I mention we played Wii? So during all of this activity, when you're with Maxwell and Olivia, you're bound to hear some funny stuff. I thought I'd share a few comments that made me laugh. I already mentioned the question of the year... well, the quote of the century was when Emily was working on Abigail's letters. She was sketching the design on a piece of paper and there were these little paisly, swirly things. Olivia walked up and said, "That looks like germs." That made me laugh very hard and I wrote it down right then so I wouldn't forget it. Another good one was when we were at Chic-Fil-A. Maxwell really wanted a brownie with ice cream for dessert. Well, his brownie was probably big enough to satisfy all four of our sweet toothes (Or is it teeth?). He gets about halfway through the ice cream and is full, turns to me and says, "Adam, I think next time I'll just get the brownie without the ice cream." Hilarious. And last but not least, we're sitting at the table eating ribs and somehow get on the subject of eating meat. Olivia makes a comment about being a carnivore. I asked her if she knew what that meant. Big mistake. She replies, "Yes, a carnivore is someone that eats meat." I told her I was impressed and she said, very matter-of-factly, "I learned that in pre-k." I'm sure there were many other comedic moments, but this is getting ridiculously long so I'll leave any others to Mel.

We had such a wonderful time in Atlanta. Hudson and Melissa have 3 beautiful children. Olivia and Maxwell are so well behaved and so much fun. Maxwell has such a sweet heart. I've never seen a 5-year old that thinks so much of others before himself. And Olivia is so smart that it's almost hard to believe. They are going to be such good examples for Abigail to look up to as she gets older. Thank you guys so much for having us. We can't wait to see you at the beach!!!

He's trying so hard!